Away From home is the sequel to Ms. Clark's popular novel, The Hills at Home. This book focuses on just one part of the family - the Alden Lowe's - and as such, is not as satisfying as the first novel when all the myriad types that make up the far-flung Hill family put in their appearances.

It is 1990 when the story begins and Alden, Becky & Little Becky are winging their way to Prague where Alden Will be working for some international agency helping Czechoslovakia to transition from their old communist economy to one of free capitalism. Becky will be working for an agency that helps to empower women entrepreneurs. Sensing that this is a new beginning, Little Becky decides to start life in Prague with a clean slate and decides to change her name to Julie. Her parents, ever distracted by their own concerns, readily assent to this decision.

But life in Prague is not as idyllic as the Lowe's had originally hoped. Their castle residence is drafty, has a temperamental supply of electricity; the help ranges from indifferent to downright sinister; and there is that minor detail of Becky's former admirer William, now in exile in Libya for spying for Muammar Ghadafi, who keeps sending her plaintive missals full of his love and longing.

When Becky decamps to join William, we learn that life on the edge of the Libyan desert need not to be lacking in Western luxuries, and that while Alden is momentarily devastated by the loss of his wife, his daughter Julie takes the opportunity to stretch her wings and fly off to new adventures. ( )